Book Talk: "Temporary Marriage in Iran" by Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/12/strange-sex-stories-from-the-muslim-world
Strange Sex Stories from the Muslim World
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/23811826
Gay Pakistan: Where sex is available and relationships are difficult
http://newslinemagazine.com/magazine/from-the-archives-the-other-side-of-midnight/
Homosexual prostitutes in Karachi
https://twitter.com/mughalbha/status/778651924656746496
https://rekhta.org/ebooks/urdu-ghazal-men-shahid-baazi-zuhoor-nazar-ebooks?lang=Ur
اردوغزل میں شاہد بازی (یعنی اغلام بازی یا لونڈے بازی)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZD9YpGxwFU&feature=youtu.be
Ayatollah Khomeini Kisses Little Girl !
http://nation.com.pk/blogs/22-Oct-2015/there-is-an-lgbt-community-in-pakistan-that-fights-for-its-survival-every-day
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3ao4g6
BBC Documentary: How Gay is Pakistan
https://news.vice.com/video/blackout-pakistan
Gays in Pakistan
http://islammonitor.org/index.php?option=com_content&id=3921:incest-in-islam
An example of the zanni in the Qur'an is the text which reads, ‘prohibited to you are your mothers and your daughters’ (al Nisa’ 4:23). The text is definitive in regard to the prohibition of marriage with one’s mother and daughter and there is no disagreement on this point. However, the word banatakum (‘your daughters’) could be taken for its literal meaning, which would be a female child born to a person either through marriage or through zina, or for its juridical meaning. In the latter sense ‘banatukum’ can only mean a legitimate daughter.
The jurists are in disagreement as to which of these meanings should be read into text. The Hanafis have upheld the first of the two meanings and have ruled on the prohibition of marriage to one’s illegitimate daughter, whereas the Shafis have upheld the second. According to this interpretation, marriage with one’s illegitimate daughter is not forbidden as the text only refers to a daughter through marriage. It would follow from this that the illegitimate daughter has no right to inheritance, and the rules of guardianship and custody would not apply to her. (Hashim Kamali, pp. 21 23)
https://www.al-islam.org/principles-upbringing-children-ayatullah-ibrahim-amini/chapter-71-gender-problems
If the children sleep on the same bed, their bodies might rub against each other and give rise to the sex instinct. The parents should not make children of five to six years of age sleep with them in the same bed. This should be particularly so in the case of a child of the opposite sex. Even the mother should not rub her body with the body of her six –year-old daughter.
The Prophet of Islam has said:
“When the child reaches the age of seven years, arrange a separate bed for him."1
Imam as-Sadiq narrates from his ancestors:
“The women and children of ten years must have separate individual beds."2
"If a mother rubs her body against the body of her own daughter, she is doing a sort of molestation."3
“A man should not kiss his six year old daughter, and a woman should not kiss her seven year old son." 4
It is a practice in many households that the women move around in partially revealing dresses. Many men too are not far behind in this. They will have loincloth up to their knees and keep moving around in the house with the sons and daughters present. They think that they are all members of the same family and Mahram, or close relations, from whom the women don’t have to hide.
The parents also think that their exposed limbs will not affect their children and that they are still very young to be conscious of any such thing. They think that their daughters’ breasts not covered with a cloth (chador) and exposed limbs will not affect their son in any way. This they think because the children are brother and sister to one another. This is not the right thinking. The instinct of sex is one of the strongest instincts and when aroused it may not allow the person to think of any relationship.
Imam ‘Ali, The Commander of the Faithful, says:
“It is very much possible that at a glimpse the instinct of love and sex might awaken."5
Such mercurial urges might become the cause of grave consequence to the innocent children. Perhaps in such circumstances the child might commit rape or incest. For any such thing the parents will be squarely responsible for their careless attitude.
Here it will be in place to quote the writing of an intellectual:
“For the psychic welfare of the children, we should not expose our bodies to them. Sometimes the children might peep through the crevices in the bathroom door while we are bathing. or changing our clothes. We must ensure that the children don’t develop such habits."6
This is true that the parents are Mahram for their children and can live in the same house together. But the parents should not sacrifice the collective rights of the children for their pleasure and freedom. This way they would be exposing their children to ruination. As a consequence their lives will be condemned to shame and melancholy.
A person’s thigh was exposed from his robe. The Prophet noticed this and said.:
“Hide your thigh, because it is one of the things that shall not be exposed to others."7
It is not proper that a four years old son takes a shower along with his mother. Similarly a four years old daughter should not bathe with her father. The children and youth should not remain alone doing nothing. Loneliness might create the urge for masturbation. The private parts of a small boy must be kept covered, not exposed, to his other siblings. Never use abusive invectives with the children. The husband and wife should not sleep on one bed in the presence of their children. They should not play pranks on each other while the children are around.
One problem of a couple with children is the sexual relations between the man and wife. It is a right of the couple to sleep together. But when there are a few children in the family, there will be the problem of having some privacy. Any way, they should continue their private relationship without giving a hint about it to the children. Otherwise there will be the danger of the sexual urge rising in the children and, at their age, it would be prone with horrible consequences.
Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq says:
“The husband should not go near his wife while the child is in their bed room. Otherwise it will be like committing a rape."8
The Prophet of Islam has said:
“By Allah! someone copulates with his wife when his child is in the room, and the child looks at them and hears their sound, then that child will never prosper. Be it a girl or a boy, either will get besmirched in adultery ( for the mere observation of the act)."
http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/shah-abbas-i-and-his-page
European travellers remarked on the shah's taste for wine and festivities, and also noted his penchant for charming pages and cup bearers. If he were not wearing a turban, the curly hair and ambiguous beauty of the young man here might suggest a woman. The crystal flask holds the wine which the youth has poured into the king's cup from a flask of gold.
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2009/02/i-wrote-the-folliwng-article-for-gay-city-news--when-iranian-president-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-made-his-infamous-claim-at-a-sept.html
Examples of the codes governing same-sex relations were to be found in the "Mirror for Princes genre of literature (andarz nameh) [which] refers to both homosexual and heterosexual relations. Often written by fathers for sons, or viziers for sultans, these books contained separate chapter headings on the treatment of male companions and of wives."
One such was the Qabus Nameh (1082-1083), in which a father advises a son: "As between women and youths, do not confine your inclinations to either sex; thus you may find enjoyment from both kinds without either of the two becoming inimical to you... During the summer let your desires incline toward youths, and during the winter towards women."
Afary dissects how "classical Persian literature (twelfth to fifteenth centuries)...overflowed with same-sex themes (such as passionate homoerotic allusions, symbolism, and even explicit references to beautiful young boys.)" This was true not only of the Sufi masters of this classical period but of "the poems of the great twentieth-century poet Iraj Mirza (1874-1926)... Classical poets also celebrated homosexual relationships between kings and their pages."
...
In the court of Naser al-Din Shah, who ruled Persia from 1848 to 1896, keeping boy concubines was still an acceptable practice, and the shah himself (in addition to his wives and harem) had a young male lover, Malijak, whom he "loved more than anyone else." In his memoirs, Malijak recalled proudly, "the king's love for me reached the point where it is impossible for me to write about it... [He] held me in his arms and kissed me as if he were kissing one of his great beloveds."
In a lengthy section of her book entitled "Toward a Westernized Modernity," Afary demonstrates how the trend toward modernization which emerged during the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 and which gave the Persian monarchy its first parliament was heavily influenced by concepts harvested from the West.
One of her most stunning revelations is how an Azeri-language newspaper edited and published in the Russian Caucuses, Molla Nasreddin (or MN, which appeared from 1906 to 1931) influenced this Iranian Revolution with a "significant new discourse on gender and sexuality," sharing Marx's well-documented contempt for homosexuals. With an editorial board that embraced Russian social democratic concepts, including women's rights, MN was also "the first paper in the Shi'i Muslim world to endorse normative heterosexuality," echoing Marx's well-documented contempt for homosexuality. Afary writes that "this illustrated satirical paper, which circulated among Iranian intellectuals and ordinary people alike, was enormously popular in the region because of its graphic cartoons."
MN conflated homosexuality and pedophilia, and attacked clerical teachers and leaders for "molesting young boys," played upon feelings of "contempt" for passive homosexuals, suggested that elite men who kept amrad concubines "had a vested interested in maintaining the (male) homosocial public spaces where semi-covert pederasty was tolerated," and "mocked the rites of exchanging brotherhood vows before a mollah and compared it to a wedding ceremony." It was in this way that a discourse of political homophobia developed in Europe, which insisted that only heterosexuality could be the norm, was introduced into Iran.
MN's attacks on homosexuality "would shape Iranian debates on sexuality for the next century," and it "became a model for several Iranian newspapers of the era," which echoed its attacks on the conservative clergy and leadership for homosexual practices. In the years that followed, "Iranian revolutionaries commonly berated major political figures for their sexual transgressions," and "revolutionary leaflets accused adult men of having homosexual sex with other adult men, 'of thirty-year-olds propositioning fifty-year-olds and twenty-year-olds propositioning forty-year-olds, right in front of the Shah.' Some leaflets repeated the old allegation that major political figures had been amrads in their youth."
Subsequently, "leading constitutionalists enthusiastically joined the campaign against homosexuality," writes Afary, noting that "the influential journal Kaveh (1916-1921), published in exile in Berlin and edited by the famous constitutionalist Hasan Taqizadeh, had led the movement of opinion against homosexuality... Their notion of modernization now included the normalization of heterosexual eros and the abandonment of all homosexual practices and even inclinations."
When Reza Kahn overthrew the monarchy's Qajar dynasty and made himself shah in 1925, he ushered in a new wave of reforms and modernization that included attempts to outlaw homosexuality entirely and a ferocious - ultimately successful - assault on classical Persian poetry. Iraj Mirza, previously known for his homoerotic poems, "joined other leading political figures of this period in encouraging compulsory heterosexuality." These politicians and intellectuals insisted that "true patriotism required switching one's sexual orientation from boys to women... Other intellectuals and educators pressed for the elimination of poems with homosexual themes from school textbooks."
Leading this crusade was a famous historian and prolific journalist, Ahmad Kasravi, "who helped shape many cultural and educational policies during the 1930s and 1940s." Kasravi founded a nationalist movement, Pak Dini (Purity of Religion), which developed a broad following. An admirer of MN, Kasravi preached that "homosexuality was a measure of cultural backwardness," that Sufi poets of homoeroticism led "parasitic" lives, and that their queer poetry "was dangerous and had to be eliminated."
Kasravi's Pak Dini movement "went so far as to institute a festival of book burning, held on winter solstice. Books deemed harmful and amoral were thrown into a bonfire in an event that seemed to echo the Nazi and Soviet-style notions of eliminating 'degenerate' art." Eventually, Prime Minister Mahmoud Jam, who held office from 1935 to 1939, acceded to Kasravi's demand that homoerotic poems be banned entirely from daily newspapers.
Kasravi "based his opposition to the homoeroticism of classical poetry on several assumptions. He expected the young generation to study Western sciences in order to rebuild the nation, and he regarded Sufi poetry as a dangerous diversion. As preposterous as it might sound, Kasravi also argued that the revival of Persian poetry was a grand conspiracy concocted by British and German Orientalists to divert the nation's youth from the revolutionary legacy of the Constitutional Revolution and to encourage... immoral pursuits."
Afary adds sorrowfully that "most supporters of women's rights sympathized with Kasravi's project because he encouraged the cultivation of monogamous, heterosexual love in marriage... In this period, neither Kasravi nor feminists distinguished between rape or molestation of boys and consensual same-sex relations between adults."
One such was the Qabus Nameh (1082-1083), in which a father advises a son: "As between women and youths, do not confine your inclinations to either sex; thus you may find enjoyment from both kinds without either of the two becoming inimical to you... During the summer let your desires incline toward youths, and during the winter towards women."
Afary dissects how "classical Persian literature (twelfth to fifteenth centuries)...overflowed with same-sex themes (such as passionate homoerotic allusions, symbolism, and even explicit references to beautiful young boys.)" This was true not only of the Sufi masters of this classical period but of "the poems of the great twentieth-century poet Iraj Mirza (1874-1926)... Classical poets also celebrated homosexual relationships between kings and their pages."
...
In the court of Naser al-Din Shah, who ruled Persia from 1848 to 1896, keeping boy concubines was still an acceptable practice, and the shah himself (in addition to his wives and harem) had a young male lover, Malijak, whom he "loved more than anyone else." In his memoirs, Malijak recalled proudly, "the king's love for me reached the point where it is impossible for me to write about it... [He] held me in his arms and kissed me as if he were kissing one of his great beloveds."
In a lengthy section of her book entitled "Toward a Westernized Modernity," Afary demonstrates how the trend toward modernization which emerged during the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 and which gave the Persian monarchy its first parliament was heavily influenced by concepts harvested from the West.
One of her most stunning revelations is how an Azeri-language newspaper edited and published in the Russian Caucuses, Molla Nasreddin (or MN, which appeared from 1906 to 1931) influenced this Iranian Revolution with a "significant new discourse on gender and sexuality," sharing Marx's well-documented contempt for homosexuals. With an editorial board that embraced Russian social democratic concepts, including women's rights, MN was also "the first paper in the Shi'i Muslim world to endorse normative heterosexuality," echoing Marx's well-documented contempt for homosexuality. Afary writes that "this illustrated satirical paper, which circulated among Iranian intellectuals and ordinary people alike, was enormously popular in the region because of its graphic cartoons."
MN conflated homosexuality and pedophilia, and attacked clerical teachers and leaders for "molesting young boys," played upon feelings of "contempt" for passive homosexuals, suggested that elite men who kept amrad concubines "had a vested interested in maintaining the (male) homosocial public spaces where semi-covert pederasty was tolerated," and "mocked the rites of exchanging brotherhood vows before a mollah and compared it to a wedding ceremony." It was in this way that a discourse of political homophobia developed in Europe, which insisted that only heterosexuality could be the norm, was introduced into Iran.
MN's attacks on homosexuality "would shape Iranian debates on sexuality for the next century," and it "became a model for several Iranian newspapers of the era," which echoed its attacks on the conservative clergy and leadership for homosexual practices. In the years that followed, "Iranian revolutionaries commonly berated major political figures for their sexual transgressions," and "revolutionary leaflets accused adult men of having homosexual sex with other adult men, 'of thirty-year-olds propositioning fifty-year-olds and twenty-year-olds propositioning forty-year-olds, right in front of the Shah.' Some leaflets repeated the old allegation that major political figures had been amrads in their youth."
Subsequently, "leading constitutionalists enthusiastically joined the campaign against homosexuality," writes Afary, noting that "the influential journal Kaveh (1916-1921), published in exile in Berlin and edited by the famous constitutionalist Hasan Taqizadeh, had led the movement of opinion against homosexuality... Their notion of modernization now included the normalization of heterosexual eros and the abandonment of all homosexual practices and even inclinations."
When Reza Kahn overthrew the monarchy's Qajar dynasty and made himself shah in 1925, he ushered in a new wave of reforms and modernization that included attempts to outlaw homosexuality entirely and a ferocious - ultimately successful - assault on classical Persian poetry. Iraj Mirza, previously known for his homoerotic poems, "joined other leading political figures of this period in encouraging compulsory heterosexuality." These politicians and intellectuals insisted that "true patriotism required switching one's sexual orientation from boys to women... Other intellectuals and educators pressed for the elimination of poems with homosexual themes from school textbooks."
Leading this crusade was a famous historian and prolific journalist, Ahmad Kasravi, "who helped shape many cultural and educational policies during the 1930s and 1940s." Kasravi founded a nationalist movement, Pak Dini (Purity of Religion), which developed a broad following. An admirer of MN, Kasravi preached that "homosexuality was a measure of cultural backwardness," that Sufi poets of homoeroticism led "parasitic" lives, and that their queer poetry "was dangerous and had to be eliminated."
Kasravi's Pak Dini movement "went so far as to institute a festival of book burning, held on winter solstice. Books deemed harmful and amoral were thrown into a bonfire in an event that seemed to echo the Nazi and Soviet-style notions of eliminating 'degenerate' art." Eventually, Prime Minister Mahmoud Jam, who held office from 1935 to 1939, acceded to Kasravi's demand that homoerotic poems be banned entirely from daily newspapers.
Kasravi "based his opposition to the homoeroticism of classical poetry on several assumptions. He expected the young generation to study Western sciences in order to rebuild the nation, and he regarded Sufi poetry as a dangerous diversion. As preposterous as it might sound, Kasravi also argued that the revival of Persian poetry was a grand conspiracy concocted by British and German Orientalists to divert the nation's youth from the revolutionary legacy of the Constitutional Revolution and to encourage... immoral pursuits."
Afary adds sorrowfully that "most supporters of women's rights sympathized with Kasravi's project because he encouraged the cultivation of monogamous, heterosexual love in marriage... In this period, neither Kasravi nor feminists distinguished between rape or molestation of boys and consensual same-sex relations between adults."
http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/30-May-2006/comment-convoluted-hypocrisy-and-extremism-ishtiaq-ahmed
"I am convinced that the West's ability to lead the world in science, arts, technology and philosophy has a causal link with its sexual liberation. Sexual liberation is not about promiscuity or sex without responsibility or love, but simply the right of the individual not to be hounded by custodians of morality about his or her freedom to choose partners. In Stockholm, young girls can go to work or return home in the middle of night without fear of being molested.
I am not sure if our daughters or sisters can go to the bazaar on their own in Lahore without being subjected to lewd remarks or worse. So, I wonder which society is morally superior. I once interviewed Dr Israr Ahmed about strict segregation and its advantages. He told me that it was meant to keep men's virility at optimum levels because in mixed societies they lost their manliness!"
http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/17-Jun-2006/view-sex-and-sensibility-saleem-h-ali
"Let us now consider the sordid ogling that some writers find most revolting in desperate Pakistani men. There was an observation in Daily Times recently that in most Western countries women can walk around without being stared at as sexual objects. Stockholm, a city I have visited, was mentioned as a model metropolis where sexual contentment has supposedly led to the perfect ambling environment for ladies. Yet, what are we to make of the European tourists who flock to the sex salons of Thailand and Cambodia? By one estimate at least 50,000 bachelor retirees from Europe and North America have permanently moved to these areas giving rise to the term "sexpatriate". According to Canadian sociologist Richard Poulin's detailed research on this sector, nearly 500,000 women of Eastern Europe and between 150,000 and 200,000 women of the countries of the ex-USSR now prostitute themselves in Western Europe. While Dubai is often criticised for this, such activities are more rampant in the West. As for the oglers, you can find plenty of them at Western beeches, bars and salons — even corporate boardrooms. While such conduct must be condemned, singling out South Asian or Muslim males as uniquely culpable is preposterous."
http://web.archive.org/web/20120129190012/http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C06%5C27%5Cstory_27-6-2006_pg3_2
"Fatima Mernissi has demonstrated in her studies of Arab societies in general and Morocco in particular that sodomy and bestiality are widespread, especially in the rural communities because of the segregation of men and women. My younger brother, who worked for years in the Pakistan Agricultural Supplies and Services Corporation (PASSCO), told me that in southern Punjab, much of NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan sodomy and bestiality are common among rural youths. In fact, he caught two boys trying to rape a goat in the vicinity of the mazar of Hazrat Sultan Bahu. The punishment meted out to them was 10 blows with a chhittar (shoe) each on their butts. They protested however that in many rural areas having sex with an animal was considered a rite of passage on the way to becoming full members of the male society!
Thus if pornographic films and websites are not accessible and men and women are socially segregated it does not mean that the sexual urge does not exist. It does and takes cruel and unnatural forms. Before the international gay community fire a broadside at me for being homophobic let me say that I am not talking about homosexuality as the choice of some individuals but sodomy as perverted sexual behaviour men resort to in sexually segregated situations."
......
"Muslim conquerors routinely distributed among themselves the women captured in battle. Maulana Maududi has fixed the right to one woman per soldier (Al-Jihad Fi Al Islam, 1981, p. 254). The question to pose therefore is: what do men do when they have the power to sexually exploit women? Dr Ali makes a strong plea for monogamy, but there is no basis for it in dogmatic Islamic law. All the four Sunni madhabs as well as the Shia fiqh allow four wives plus concubines acquired in battle. Dr Ali needs to read his own father, Professor Shaukat Ali's book, Islam and the Challenge of Modernity, to know how fiercely the ulema opposed any restrictions on the right to four wives that all Muslim men are entitled to under dogmatic Sharia.
The Shia fiqh even allows mut'a or temporary marriage. Moreover, all the fiqhs allow minor girls to be married. Therefore Dr Ali's plea about Eastern values as source of his ideal of a monogamous marriage is a misleading though pious-sounding cliché; it has no support in classical Islamic law."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/822312.stm
6 July 2000:
A new report has, for the first time, acknowledged that prostitution and drug-taking are widespread among young Iranians.
The report says there are up to two-million drug addicts, some of them schoolchildren, with an estimated five tonnes of narcotics consumed every day in the capital, Tehran.
Prostitution is also said to be sharply increasing, along with divorce rates and suicides.
http://www.rferl.org/a/1094790.html
9 Sep 2000: Now, another high-ranking cleric has fueled the public debate further by proposing last month that temporary marriages become part of Iran's civil code. The cleric, Ayatollah Makarem-e Shirazi, called for parliament to consider passing legislation that would require all temporary marriages be subject to civil law.
Registering the marriage contracts could offer temporary wives greater legal protection, including the right to alimony. Under Shiite religious law, all children born from temporary marriages must be recognized as legitimate and can claim a share of inheritances. But the temporary wife and mother has no legal privileges.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1464990.stm
http://www.rferl.org/a/1097025.html
26 July 2001: Iranian police said yesterday they had arrested a man suspected in a majority of the murders of 19 prostitutes over the past year in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad. The Iranian press have dubbed the killings the "spider murders" for the way the victims have been entangled and strangled in their own headscarves -- much like an insect trapped in a web. The arrest may bring a halt to the mounting number of Mashhad's female murder victims.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1461888.stm
28 July 2001:
Mr
Hanaie said that he "killed the women for the sake of God, and for the
protection of my religion because they were prostitutes and were
corrupting other people".
"I
wouldn't have been bothered even if I had killed 150 women because I
wanted to clean the holy city of Mashhad from corrupt women and
prostitutes," he said.
"After every single murder, I went back to the scene of the crime and helped the police to remove the body," he added.
...
The
killings were dubbed the "spider murders" by people who thought the
killer used headscarves to ensnare the women in the same way that a
spider uses a web to trap its victims.
Prior to Mr Hanaie's arrest Iranian police had rounded up around 500 prostitutes in Mashhad to protect them from the murderer.
The
killings had sparked outrage throughout Iran, not only because of
safety concerns, but also because of the revelations about the extent of
prostitution in Iran's holiest city.
http://www.payvand.com/news/01/sep/1060.html
15 Sep 2001:
Qom, Sept 15, IRNA -- The provincial justice administration in this holy city has sentenced two men to death and slapped 23 of their accomplices with jail terms of from three to 25 years after finding them guilty of operating a prostitution ring, the top judge said here Saturday.
Ali Talebi told IRNA the 40-member gang, who were all arrested a onth ago, lured young girls to prostitution, committed rape, kidnapping, drug-trafficking, robbery and various other crimes against morals and social order.
He said 15 others in the group have been sentenced to lashes of the whip which are to be carried out publicly.
In July, authorities announced they had broken a gang that was abducting young girls in Qom, some 125 kilometers south of Tehran, which members raped collectively.
Press reports in recent months said that an initial 13 members of the gang had been arrested and that three were still being sought for rape committed on a dozen girls.
Prostitution, legalized in many western societies, is a crime under Iranian law with stiffer penalties imposed since after the 1979-Islamic Revolution.
Victims are mostly runaways or young girls lured to the trade because of the promise of financial reward.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/watershed-the-will-of-the-iranian-people-should-not-be-ignored-this-time-ar
According to a July 2000 report authored by Muhammad Ali Zam, director of cultural and artistic affairs for Tehran, reported that prostitution had increased 635 percent between 1998 and 1999. Prostitution thrives even in the clerical center of Qom where, in December 2001, authorities broke up a large prostitution ring. Widely believed rumors of the complicity of officials in prostitution were bolstered when, in February 2001, authorities arrested a judge in connection with running a prostitution ring involving runaway girls, including some as young as 13. Every month, the press brings words of new raids on brothels. Just this month, one of Iran's leading soccer stars was suspended and sentenced to a fine and lashing for patronizing a brothel in Tehran. The exponential growth in exploitation of girls and women has reached such heights that officials are no longer able to hide it. At a June 2002 conference in Tehran on public-health issues, health and social workers spoke of 84,000 prostitutes working openly in Tehran. Thirteen out of every 45 girls running away from home never return and are likely forced into the trade; officials speak of 80,000 runaways annually. While the Revolutionary Guards now warns that it considers discussion of Iran's social problems to be subversive and treasonous, some opposition religious figures have broken ranks to talk about the root cause of the decline.
On March 24, 2002, Hojjat al-Islam Hadi Ghabel addressed a crowd in Isfahan, and declared, "Thirteen and fourteen year-old junior high school girls now engage in prostitution, and I ask how can it be that under such degrading conditions the regime wastes billions of dollars on worthless programs...?" Indeed, while fathers sell their daughters in order to put food on the family table, and workers at state-owned factories march for salaries not paid in eight months, in March 2001, Khatami traveled to Moscow to sign a $7 billion weapons and nuclear-technology purchase.
http://www.irantracker.org/full-publication/meeting-challenge-us-policy-toward-iranian-nuclear-development-page-2
https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18276.htm
2002: In July two well-known soccer players were sentenced to 170 lashes after being arrested at a brothel. The Government closed many brothels around the country during the year and the police reportedly arrested 243 persons involved in prostitution networks. There was a report that a man was executed in April in Mashad for killing sixteen prostitutes. He claimed that he considered the killings to be a religious obligation. In another instance, in the city of Karaj, a judge of a revolutionary court was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a lashing for forcing runaway girls into prostitution.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2156975.stm
28 July 2002:
A controversial plan to set up what are being denounced as licensed brothels in Iran has been rejected by official bodies.
http://www.rferl.org/a/1100473.html
7 August 2002: Prostitution is illegal in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the penalties are severe, ranging from flogging to execution.
But for reasons no one entirely understands, the number of prostitutes on the streets of Iranian cities and towns has grown substantially in recent years, particularly in Tehran and the holy city of Qom, which is a center for pilgrims and domestic tourists.
Prostitutes wear their veils loosely over their heads in a style that passes for risque in this strictly regulated society. With their faces heavily made up, they stand at traffic circles where men driving by can inspect them and make a deal. The women are often young, including many teenagers who have run away from abusive homes.
Based on official figures, there are some 300,000 women who work as prostitutes in Iran. And according to newspapers, the number is steadily rising, despite frequent police crackdowns.
Now, some senior religious figures are suggesting the only way to solve the problem is to bring it under state control. In recent weeks, several prominent conservative clerics have proposed that prostitutes be placed in government-run shelters for destitute women to be called "chastity houses," where male customers could briefly marry them under Islamic law.
Proponents of the idea argue that it would "eradicate social corruption" by legitimizing sexual relations between the men and women. Under the plan, the couples would register for a temporary marriage under Iran's Shiite religious law code. The code allows a man to marry a woman for a mutually agreed time as short as a few hours or as long as a lifetime by reciting a verse from the Koran.
http://www.shiachat.com/forum/topic/24885-prostitutionsex-trade-in-iran-on-rise/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2516513.stm
26 Nov 2002: Islamic Iran's religious militia has announced the arrest of about 24,000 people on vice charges over the past six months.
http://www.rferl.org/a/1342811.html
23 Dec 2002:
IRAN CONFRONTS SPREAD OF PROSTITUTION. According to official statistics, some 300,000 female prostitutes work in Iran. Tehran deputy police chief Ahmad Ruzbehani on 17 December described the elimination of a gang that tricked young Iranian girls into prostitution and sent them to other countries, according to IRNA. Ruzbehani said that the arrest of four women and eight men followed a complaint by a woman who said she was sexually assaulted and then sent to Dubai for prostitution. Other press reports on 17 December, according to IRNA, told of police breaking up a prostitution ring in Isfahan.
Professor Rasool Nafisi of Strayer College attributed the rise in prostitution to the poor economy, a high divorce rate, and the exploitation of girls who flee abusive family situations. Nafisi said in a summer 2002 interview with RFE/RL's Persian Service: "The major factor is the high rate of divorce, which is about 25 percent. The other is runaway girls who leave home for a variety of reasons and become bait for those who lure them into prostitution." (see "Iran: Proposal Debated For Solving Prostitution With 'Chastity Houses,'" rferl.org, 7 August 2002).
The Iranian government is trying to deal with the spread of prostitution in several ways. Tehran parliamentarian Jamileh Kadivar, who is a member of the legislature's Women's Group, said in an interview that appeared in the 7 December "Toseh" morning daily that there are serious efforts under way to help prostitutes find new occupations. Kadivar said that the budgetary allocation for this is inadequate right now, and she recommended providing women with a stipend that would tide them over as they move into new occupations and financial self-sufficiency. Kadivar explained who is being targeted in this effort: "We must divide special women [prostitutes] into two groups. One group consists of those who turn to prostitution because of lax morality. But there are also other women who fall into that trap because of poverty. Our aim is to help that latter group who have fallen on hard times."
A much more controversial program involves the so-called "chastity houses" (efaf) that were promoted in summer 2002. These would be government-run shelters for destitute women who could engage in temporary marriages with male customers in exchange for a fee (a temporary marriage is a religiously accepted concept that allows a man and woman to marry for a period ranging from a few hours to a lifetime after they recite a Koranic verse).
Ayatollah Mohammad Musavi Bojnurdi, an advocate of the plan, was quoted as saying: "We face a real challenge with all these women on the street. Our society is in an emergency situation, so the formation of the chastity houses can be an immediate solution to the problem."
The chastity-house idea also met with opposition. Qom clerical scholar Hojatoleslam Mohammed Taqi Fazel-Meibodi told RFE/RL's Persian Service that, although the proposal is religiously legal, it would not solve the problems of the prostitutes themselves, and it would not prevent more women from joining their ranks. Fazel-Meibodi said: "Our young people are troubled. There is poverty, unemployment, and more and more girls are escaping from their homes. Establishing these chastity houses will come to no good." Fazel-Meibodi continued: "In a society where there are sharp differences between rich and poor, rich men will use these poor girls for a quick thrill and to satisfy their impulses and lust. Also, we have so many serious problems right now. What [problems] are they trying to overcome by introducing these houses at this juncture?"
After the Iranian press reported on the state-approved chastity houses in July, a police official said that the Interior Ministry was behind the plan. The Interior Ministry on 29 July rejected the reports, describing them as "baseless," according to IRNA. (Bill Samii)
http://www.rferl.org/a/1058130.htmlhttp://www.irantracker.org/full-publication/meeting-challenge-us-policy-toward-iranian-nuclear-development-page-2
A July 2000 report authored by the director of cultural and artistic affairs for Tehran found that prostitution had increased 635 percent between 1998 and 1999. A July 2008 report from the Department of Psychology at the Pedagogical University of Tehran found that even young teens, married, and educated women now engage in prostitution to make ends meet for their families. Officially, there are now 300,000 prostitutes in Iran, although government figures likely understate the problem. For many Iranians, this symbolizes the failure of their leadership.
Such social ills highlight corruption. In February 2001, Iranian authorities arrested a judge in connection with running a prostitution ring involving runaway girls. Abbas Ali Alizadeh, the head of Tehran’s Justice Administration, explained, “This organized team identified girls between 13 to 17 years of age and smuggled them abroad…. Some parents even cooperated with the gang due to the financial benefits.” In December 2001, the conservative daily Jomhuri-ye Eslami reported that authorities had broken up a large prostitution ring in the holy city of Qom. The following month, the government daily Kayhan reported raids on eight brothels in a single Tehran suburb. The issue again hit headlines in April 2008, when security services arrested Reza Zerai, police commander of Tehran, in a brothel with several naked prostitutes. While prostitution exists in all societies, the phenomenon in Iran appears directly linked to the decline of the economy.
With intravenous drug use and prostitution rising, Iran is vulnerable to a serious AIDS problem. Indeed, according to the Islamic Republic’s own count, more than 90,000 Iranians have the disease.
https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18276.htm
2002: In July two well-known soccer players were sentenced to 170 lashes after being arrested at a brothel. The Government closed many brothels around the country during the year and the police reportedly arrested 243 persons involved in prostitution networks. There was a report that a man was executed in April in Mashad for killing sixteen prostitutes. He claimed that he considered the killings to be a religious obligation. In another instance, in the city of Karaj, a judge of a revolutionary court was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a lashing for forcing runaway girls into prostitution.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2156975.stm
28 July 2002:
A controversial plan to set up what are being denounced as licensed brothels in Iran has been rejected by official bodies.
The growing problem of prostitution in the country has been the subject of mounting concern, but this attempt to find an Islamic solution was not well received in some quarters.
The detailed plan for the establishment of what are being coyly referred to as "decency houses" was drawn up by the Interior Ministry's deputy for social affairs.
But according to senior police officials, the plan was rejected by the Ministry's own Social Council, having run into opposition from religious quarters and women's groups.
http://www.rferl.org/a/1100473.html
7 August 2002: Prostitution is illegal in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the penalties are severe, ranging from flogging to execution.
But for reasons no one entirely understands, the number of prostitutes on the streets of Iranian cities and towns has grown substantially in recent years, particularly in Tehran and the holy city of Qom, which is a center for pilgrims and domestic tourists.
Prostitutes wear their veils loosely over their heads in a style that passes for risque in this strictly regulated society. With their faces heavily made up, they stand at traffic circles where men driving by can inspect them and make a deal. The women are often young, including many teenagers who have run away from abusive homes.
Based on official figures, there are some 300,000 women who work as prostitutes in Iran. And according to newspapers, the number is steadily rising, despite frequent police crackdowns.
Now, some senior religious figures are suggesting the only way to solve the problem is to bring it under state control. In recent weeks, several prominent conservative clerics have proposed that prostitutes be placed in government-run shelters for destitute women to be called "chastity houses," where male customers could briefly marry them under Islamic law.
Proponents of the idea argue that it would "eradicate social corruption" by legitimizing sexual relations between the men and women. Under the plan, the couples would register for a temporary marriage under Iran's Shiite religious law code. The code allows a man to marry a woman for a mutually agreed time as short as a few hours or as long as a lifetime by reciting a verse from the Koran.
http://www.shiachat.com/forum/topic/24885-prostitutionsex-trade-in-iran-on-rise/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2516513.stm
26 Nov 2002: Islamic Iran's religious militia has announced the arrest of about 24,000 people on vice charges over the past six months.
Gholam-Hussain Kluli Dezfuli, commander of the feared Basij, told an Iranian paper that the numbers marked an increase on the same period last year.
The definition of vice extends to gambling and alcohol consumption but Commander Dezfuli said that 107 brothels had also been raided.
The BBC's Iranian affairs analyst, Sadeq Saba, says that prostitution is a huge problem which is embarrassing Iranians accustomed to viewing their country as a model for Islamic states.
http://www.rferl.org/a/1342811.html
23 Dec 2002:
IRAN CONFRONTS SPREAD OF PROSTITUTION. According to official statistics, some 300,000 female prostitutes work in Iran. Tehran deputy police chief Ahmad Ruzbehani on 17 December described the elimination of a gang that tricked young Iranian girls into prostitution and sent them to other countries, according to IRNA. Ruzbehani said that the arrest of four women and eight men followed a complaint by a woman who said she was sexually assaulted and then sent to Dubai for prostitution. Other press reports on 17 December, according to IRNA, told of police breaking up a prostitution ring in Isfahan.
Professor Rasool Nafisi of Strayer College attributed the rise in prostitution to the poor economy, a high divorce rate, and the exploitation of girls who flee abusive family situations. Nafisi said in a summer 2002 interview with RFE/RL's Persian Service: "The major factor is the high rate of divorce, which is about 25 percent. The other is runaway girls who leave home for a variety of reasons and become bait for those who lure them into prostitution." (see "Iran: Proposal Debated For Solving Prostitution With 'Chastity Houses,'" rferl.org, 7 August 2002).
The Iranian government is trying to deal with the spread of prostitution in several ways. Tehran parliamentarian Jamileh Kadivar, who is a member of the legislature's Women's Group, said in an interview that appeared in the 7 December "Toseh" morning daily that there are serious efforts under way to help prostitutes find new occupations. Kadivar said that the budgetary allocation for this is inadequate right now, and she recommended providing women with a stipend that would tide them over as they move into new occupations and financial self-sufficiency. Kadivar explained who is being targeted in this effort: "We must divide special women [prostitutes] into two groups. One group consists of those who turn to prostitution because of lax morality. But there are also other women who fall into that trap because of poverty. Our aim is to help that latter group who have fallen on hard times."
A much more controversial program involves the so-called "chastity houses" (efaf) that were promoted in summer 2002. These would be government-run shelters for destitute women who could engage in temporary marriages with male customers in exchange for a fee (a temporary marriage is a religiously accepted concept that allows a man and woman to marry for a period ranging from a few hours to a lifetime after they recite a Koranic verse).
Ayatollah Mohammad Musavi Bojnurdi, an advocate of the plan, was quoted as saying: "We face a real challenge with all these women on the street. Our society is in an emergency situation, so the formation of the chastity houses can be an immediate solution to the problem."
The chastity-house idea also met with opposition. Qom clerical scholar Hojatoleslam Mohammed Taqi Fazel-Meibodi told RFE/RL's Persian Service that, although the proposal is religiously legal, it would not solve the problems of the prostitutes themselves, and it would not prevent more women from joining their ranks. Fazel-Meibodi said: "Our young people are troubled. There is poverty, unemployment, and more and more girls are escaping from their homes. Establishing these chastity houses will come to no good." Fazel-Meibodi continued: "In a society where there are sharp differences between rich and poor, rich men will use these poor girls for a quick thrill and to satisfy their impulses and lust. Also, we have so many serious problems right now. What [problems] are they trying to overcome by introducing these houses at this juncture?"
After the Iranian press reported on the state-approved chastity houses in July, a police official said that the Interior Ministry was behind the plan. The Interior Ministry on 29 July rejected the reports, describing them as "baseless," according to IRNA. (Bill Samii)
25 March 2005:
Iranian-born director Nahid Persson earned high honors at the recent Creteil International Women's Films Festival for her chronicle of two young women on the streets of Tehran. "Prostitution Behind the Veil" follows the lives of two young friends -- Minna and Fariba -- who have turned to prostitution to make a living.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/apr/19/johnaglionby.mainsection
19 April 2006: A Singapore court sentenced a man to 32 years in prison and 24 strokes of the cane yesterday after he confessed to repeatedly raping five of his 33 daughters. The Muslim businessman, 45, who also has 33 sons and 10 wives, and cannot be named to protect the victims, persuaded his wives to allow the abuse by distorting sections of the Qur'an so they thought he had ownership of his children to the extent that he could have sex with them.
.....
Mr Seet said that after his client divorced his first wife he took four legal wives and then an additional six "contractual wives", which are permitted by the Shia sect to which he belongs.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-iran-porn-video
2008: A married Iranian cleric caught on video committing adultery
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-1n19vice223852-across-baghdad-sin-back-boozing-pro-2009apr19-story.html
19 April 2009:
One police detective said he would not dream of enforcing the law against prostitutes. “They're the best sources we have,” said the detective, whose name is being withheld for his safety. “They know everything about JAM and al-Qaeda members,” he said, using the acronym for Jaish al-Mahdi or Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/04/29/islams-sex-licenses.html
29 April 2009: Temporary marriages in US
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/07/what-happens-in-mashhad-stays-in-mashhad
Temporary marriage in Mashhad
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/temporary-marriage-iran-islam
March 2010:
Iranian feminists ardently oppose sigheh. In the summer of 2008, they were infuriated by President Ahmadinejad's attempts to push through a new "family protection" law that would have made it easier for men to contract temporary marriages. Many of those activists took to the streets after his contested reelection the following June. "One of the main attributes of marriage is publicity and the celebration of it," said Ziba Mir-Hosseini, a legal anthropologist who wrote a study of Islamic family law. "Women who enter this kind of marriage never talk about it. That's why I call it a socially defective marriage." While the ayatollahs see temporary marriage as good for both sexes, feminists point out its lopsided nature: It is largely the prerogative of wealthy married men, and the majority of women in sighehs are divorced, widowed, or poor. Only a man has the right to renew a sigheh when it expires—for another mehr—or to terminate it early. While women may have only one husband at a time, men may have four wives and are permitted unlimited temporary wives. Rezvan Moghadam, the director of a women's health nonprofit, put it bluntly: "Men do it for fun. Women do it for money; they don't enjoy it at all."
Yet women do derive some benefits from sigheh. Children born of sighehs are considered legitimate, and entitled to a share of their father's inheritance. In a permanent marriage, the family usually negotiates a dowry on the bride's behalf; a woman entering a temporary marriage sets her own terms. A temporary wife has no right to maintenance or inheritance, but she also has fewer obligations than her permanent counterpart—her duty to obey her husband encompasses only sex.
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2010/06/najaf-on-vaticans-steps.html
https://iwpr.net/global-voices/sex-scandal-rocks-iraqi-shia-establishment
4 July 2010: Munaf Hamdan Naji al-Mosawi, a close aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for 11 years, has gone into hiding after intimate footage apparently recorded on his mobile phone ended up in the hands of neighbours who marched to his home in Amara to demand the return of their religious donations, according to IWPR sources - religious figures in Amara and Najaf, where Sistani's office is based.
...
IWPR sources say the footage, which became public when Mosawi lost his phone's memory card, allegedly shows the cleric naked and involved in sexual acts with his wife and, in a separate video, another woman with whom he had a muta'a, or temporary marriage. Locals who have seen the complete contents of the card claim there are images of as many as 18 other women.
....
According to sources familiar with the Shia faith, that Mosawi was allegedly engaged in sex with the two women is not the problem. The fact he allegedly filmed the said encounters, however, is considered beyond the pale, especially for a leading cleric.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2012/mar/06/iran-temporary-marriage-law-sigheh
6 March 2012: Iran's parliament approved a new amendment to a controversial law in the civil code that allows men to have as many sexual partners as they want – all sanctioned by sharia law under the term "temporary marriage".
https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2012/apr/20/iran-diplomat-accused-molestation-brazil
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17780497
20 April 2012:
Brazil says it will seek an explanation from Iran after an Iranian diplomat was accused of molesting underage girls at a swimming pool in Brasilia.
http://observers.france24.com/en/20120710-video-cleric-%E2%80%9Cmolesting%E2%80%9D-woman-bus-prompts-anger-online-islamic-muslim-clergy-iran-video
7 Oct 2012:
An amateur video that appears to show an Islamic cleric inappropriately touching a woman on a bus is causing outrage among Iranian Internet users. Our Observer, a young Iranian woman, says such behaviour is common and recounts her own story of being sexually harassed by a member of the clergy.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/archive/print/631621-temporary-marriage-becomes-popular-among-young-uk-muslims
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22354201
13 May 2013: Temporary marriages in UK
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/1784.htm
Pleasure Marriages in Sunni and Shi'ite Islam
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/20/iranian-study-finds-singles-having-sex-recommends-temporary-marriages.html
20 August 2014:
Young Iranians are having pre-marital sex – including homosexual relations – in far greater numbers than the regime in Tehran would like to admit, according to a government study which recommends addressing the issue by encouraging the use of "temporary" marriages that may last no longer then the tryst itself.
The 82-page report, issued by Iran’s parliamentary research branch, and compiled from interviews with 142,000 students, found 80 percent of females acknowledged having premarital sex. The report, exposing the raw statistics of these incidents, has been withdrawn from the government website, although FoxNews.com obtained a copy.
Young women are entering romantic relationships as early as middle school and 17 percent of all respondents identified as homosexual.
The report underscores the vast difference between Iranian society and what the regime espouses. In a youth-dominated population of more than 75 million, where two-thirds are under the age of 35, there is a pronounced affinity toward Western lifestyles, including fashion, music and sex.
https://iranwire.com/en/features/665
20 Oct 2014:
Eighty percent of Iranian women engage in premarital sex, according to a recent report published by parliamentary researchers. But despite this, conservative sections of society still insist that women refrain from having sex until marriage — a moral code that translates directly into practical, official aspects of Iranian life, including the national ID, or shenasnameh. If a couple separate during their engagement and a woman wishes to remove the name of her husband-to-be from her shenasnameh, she must prove that she is still a virgin. In some cases, this has led women to take drastic measures.
“A woman's virginity needs to be verified according to judicial decrees and the divorce document,” says Mohsen Esmaeli, a senior official at the National Organization for Civil Registration (NOCR), a body that issues identification documents to the Iranian people. “However, an Iranian man who has divorced his wife can take her name off his shenasnameh if he marries a second wife and registers the second marriage with the authorities.”
http://www.rferl.org/content/iran-marriage-society-lifestyle/26728820.html
6 Dec 2014: Cohabitation in Iran
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/25/the-muslim-call-girl-who-ll-marry-you-first.html
25 March 2015: An hour with London escort Kamillah is $450. But for $100 more, she’ll enter into a nikah mut’ah—a temporary marriage that some Shia say makes sex outside of marriage permissible.
https://iranwire.com/en/features/453
2 April 2015: The Iranian parliament’s report warns that "80 percent of female high-school students in Iran have boyfriends and even sexual contact" and "88 percent of Iranian students think it is OK to chat with the opposite sex."
The report also refers to the rise of the average age of marriage in Iran, 27 for men, 22 for women, as a crisis. It concludes with this alarmed point: "Marriage is becoming more and more difficult and if we don’t find an alternative for that, people would satisfy their sexual urges in other ways including masturbation, homosexuality, adultery and rape. The solution to all these sexual irregularities is temporary marriage."
"The wording of this report shows those behind it don’t even have a thorough understanding of sexual issues," says Ghazian. ‘When they view masturbation and homosexuality as sexual irregularities, it is clear they don’t have a clue about sexual issues and they cannot come up with a proper solution either."
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/iran-womens-magazine-zanan-emrooz-suspended.html
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-bans-womens-magazine-over-coverage-cohabiting-couples-508820870
27 April 2015: An Iranian women’s magazine has been shut down after publishing a front-page spread about the practice of couples living together outside of marriage.
Zanan-e Emrooz [Women of Today], a monthly magazine aimed at women, had published a cover story about the phenomenon of “white marriage,” the term used in Iran to describe couples co-habiting outside marriage.
Alongside an image of a woman and a man walking side by side in the street, the cover asked: “White marriage: Affliction or Treatment?”
Iran’s Media Supervision Board on Monday announced that Zanan-e Emrooz would be referred to the country’s courts for “violating national and Islamic values” by promoting the practice, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported.
http://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-girl-sold-prostitution/27349799.html
6 Nov 2015:
Police in Pakistan have arrested a man for arranging to sell his 12-year-old daughter into prostitution in a case that highlights the dramatic abuses inflicted on women and children in some segments of society.
RFE/RL interviews with the intended victim, Nushin, and a brother suggest that Adalat Khan, from Pakistan's tribally dominated northwestern region, has already profited from the sale of at least two other daughters and their mother into lives of servitude or worse.
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/6966774465112555528 Feb 2016: Interior Ministry warns of "criminal" that brings #Chinese girls to #Iran, converts them to #Islam, makes them "temporary wives" (#mut'ah)..
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/720251247060742144
13 April 2016: TEHRAN-#Islamic Dpty Youth Min. #Sobhi calls on govt. to regulate 350 agencies arranging temporary marriages (#mut'ah) with no supervision.
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/752844384765370368
12 July: 2016: TEHRAN-Daily
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/752834890631090176
12 July 2016: TEHRAN- Temporary marriage (#mut-ah) service starts on-line with #fatwa. Temporary wives could be chosen & booked for one hour to 99 years.
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/752845371475361793
12 July 2016: TEHRAN-Temporary marriage (#mut'ah) online service announecs it's currently available only in Tehran, Karaj, Mash'had, Shiraz,Isfahan &Yazd.
19 Nov 2016:
The death of a hardline Iranian cleric has led to the public exposure of lurid photographs showing him and a colleague with prostitutes when they were young men.
Hojjat al-Islam Jafar Shojoni was a prominent member of the Combatant Clergy Association, and a supporter of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
http://shiamasjid.com/books/IslamicLaws/232.html
"2384. The father and the paternal grandfather can contract a marriage on behalf of his minor son or daughter, or on behalf of an insane son or daughter, if they are baligh. And after the children have become baligh or the insane has become sane, he can endorse or abrogate it, if the contracted marriage involves any moral lapse or scandal.
And if the marriage contract does not involve any moral lapse or scandal, but the na-baligh son or daughter calls off the marriage, then as an obligatory precaution, a Talaq or a renewed Nikah, whatever the case may be, must be recited.
And if the marriage contract does not involve any moral lapse or scandal, but the na-baligh son or daughter calls off the marriage, then as an obligatory precaution, a Talaq or a renewed Nikah, whatever the case may be, must be recited.
2385. If a girl has reached the age of bulugh and is virgin and mature (i.e. she can decide what is in her own interest) wishes to marry, she should, obtain permission from her father or paternal grandfather, although she may be looking after her own affairs. It is not, however, necessary for her to obtain permission from her mother or brother.
2386. In the following situations, it will not be necessary for a woman to seek the permission of her father or paternal grandfather, before getting married:
- If she is not a virgin.
- If she is a virgin, but her father or paternal grandfather refuse to grant permission to her for marrying a man who is compatible to her in the eyes of Shariah, as well as custom.
- If the father and the grandfather are not in any way willing to participate in the marriage.
- If they are not in a capacity to give their consent, like in the case of mental illness etc.
- If it is not possible to obtain their permission because of their absence, or such other reasons, and the woman is eager to get married urgently."
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/844959639775170561
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/844960298385707008
23 March 2017: #Ayatollah Vahid's appeal to Islamic police comes after Tehran daily Mardom-Salari runs feature on widespread male prostitution in holy city
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/844956303030136837
23 March 2017: QOM-#Ayatollah Sobhani today: Divorce has reached epidemic levels & extra-marital sex at levels unacceptable in any truly Islmaic system.
https://iranwire.com/en/features/4867
28 Sep 2017:
Iranian women, like women in many other countries, are vulnerable to this threat. One example was the 2002 high-profile arrest of the members of a gang that smuggled Iranian women to Arab countries. Another example was the 2001 scandal known as the “House of the Islamic Guidance” in Karaj, near Tehran. The house was a charity institution that belonged to the Noor (“Light”) Foundation and was supposed to take care of girls — seven years of age and up — who had nobody else to look after them. In reality, the people managing the house were using the girls in the sex trade. One of the girls escaped and contacted the media, and the office of the then-president, Mohammad Khatami. One of the accused was Mohammad Montazeri Moghadam, President of the Revolutionary Court in Karaj.
In 2011 a big trafficking gang, known as the “Kurdish Aunt” gang, was discovered in the holy city of Qom. “Kurdish Aunt” referred to a divorced woman of 50 who had moved to Qom from Kurdistan and set up a gang that was active both inside and outside Iran. The authorities arrested 60 members of the gang.
....
I remember talking to a field reporter who was very active in this area. He told me that once he had gone to a brothel to gather material for his reporting and had found out that the place even had a bankcard reader. He witnessed a dispute between a client and the pimps. The pimps threatened to call 110, the emergency number in Iran, to solve the problem. In other words, they wanted the police to come and settle the dispute. This story is one of many that shows that the judiciary bailiffs, be it the police, the Revolutionary Guards or the Basijis, ignore these crimes and close their eyes to the activities of the pimps.
This tolerance shown toward pimps can also be viewed in the broader context of Iran’s security policies. It has been shown time and time again that when the Iranian security establishment cannot handle a social issue such as smuggling and drug trafficking, it tries to take it over and control it. It is this same security macro-policy that we see at work in the case of prostitution.
http://www.thearabweekly.com/?id=9561
Oct 2017:
Today, 39 years after the revolution, prostitution is not restricted to one neighbourhood of the Iranian capital. It has spread throughout Tehran. Worse, unlike in the pre-revolutionary era, there is no medical care available to sex workers and there is no birth control and protection against sexually transmitted disease available to underage girls in the trade. The hijab and the physical separation of men and women in public spaces have failed to protect chastity. Home parties and private debauchery have replaced cabarets.
All of the above are not the claims of columnists critical of the Islamic Republic. They are the findings of the “Social Report,” published by the Rahman Institute, an NGO working in Iran.
The report stated that prostitution has reached epidemic proportions in the Islamic Republic. More than 500,000 women are reportedly engaged in prostitution all over the country. Large urban centres, including the major pilgrimage sites of Qom and Mashhad, attract the greatest number of sex workers. They engage in so-called temporary marriages.
....
Prostitution is not limited to women. The Iranian media often report on male prostitutes and the rent boys patronised by well-to-do ladies. A report in Mardomsalari said three young flatmates, all of whom work as accountants, supplement their salary by sleeping with wealthy older women. They insist they are not prostitutes because they aren’t female.
https://twitter.com/AmirTaheri4/status/924601449530699777
29 Oct 2017:
Islamic Republic advice to female Iranian pilgrims in Iraqi "holy" cities: Don't go anywhere without male chaperons, sexual fiends operate.
https://twitter.com/IranWireEnglish/status/968509807253737473
https://iranwire.com/en/features/5196
27 Feb 2018: A new study reveals that the Islamic Republic’s policies to deal with prostitution have failed and that officials lack a humane approach and attitude toward sex workers. In fact, the report has found, the continued promotion of “temporary marriages” in the country — a practice in Shia Islam that makes sexual activity out of permanent marriage permissible — is tantamount to legalizing prostitution.
....
According to the report, the age of sex workers in Iran has fallen as low as 10 years old, and the young girls who have recently entered the trade form the majority of the country’s sex workers. Based on a survey cited by the report, of 6,053 women in Iran who are in jail for prostitution, the majority are aged from 12 to 25.
No comments:
Post a Comment